


Bedford, do you call this thing a coat?

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Boston, Domestic, F/M, Marriage, Mathematics, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7124242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An explanation for sartorial, and other, excess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedford, do you call this thing a coat?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annebronterocks](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Annebronterocks).



“Molly, are you there?” Jed called softly into the parlor. Sound echoed in the house. They had moved in barely two weeks ago and the rooms were all only partially furnished. Mary had ordered several rugs but only the one for the bedroom had arrived. Jed had found that his voice seemed unnecessarily harsh reflected by the shining wood floors; only the delicate folds of quickly hemmed muslin Mary had put up at the windows were ready to swallow it back. Soon enough, he knew, there would be handsome velvet drapes in the library and parlor and upholstered furniture pleasingly arranged. Mary had devoted the majority of her efforts to it, saying “How else should I spend my time but making our home a place of comfort for you?” though he noted she still found hours in her day to write to fat letters to Emma Green in Alexandria, read her German novels, and meet with the friends she’d made in Boston before she’d left for Virginia. Miss Watson had been most glad to see her, she’d announced contentedly, and she had rekindled her connection with Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. Pierce quite easily. He wasn’t surprised. She was used to the brisk pace of the hospital life now and caring for only one man, a healthy one at that, was little enough to occupy her, though she did it exceedingly well. She had hired a housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Hutchins, and a little housemaid named Martha “but called Patty, missus, I think I shan’t remember to answer to Martha if you call me that though mother says I should now I’m grown” and with their respectively able and eager help, she was making quick work of feathering their nest. 

He was a little worried she would overwork herself and tried to tell her not to hurry so but she only smiled and laughed at her solicitous husband. Once she had remarked, “To think, those first few days, how you harried me, you were remorseless Jed, truly—do you know I didn’t eat at all the first two days and Matron only gave me leave to sleep on the floor, and now to hear you, so careful of me, you really needn’t fret so.” She had said it so matter-of-factly, her tone only a little wry and not at all accusatory, but he still felt the sting of it, the memory of how he had mocked and bullied her when she had arrived. He had been relentless. He remembered the spike of irritation he’d had towards her when he tripped over her carpetbag, which she could find no secure place for. He recognized in retrospect she had been pale and tired from her trip, the examination by Miss Dix, the shock of the hospital where the orderlies had given up sponging the blood from the walls as long as there was fresh sawdust to spread on the slick floors. He had noticed only her audacity and intelligence and the way her dark eyes had shone. He’d been unsettled by the fleeting sense of the curve of her hip against him when she tried to help subdue the solider who threatened him. 

There was nothing to be done about it now other than what he did, which was take her to bed earlier than they usually retired and make love to her late into the night. He would seek to redeem all his slights and insults with a double measure of delight, as patient now in seeking her pleasure as he had once been impatient with her deliberate approach to the hospital. When she lay in their bed, bare and rosy, he had crept down the the kitchen and brought back fresh custard Mrs. Hutchins made only that afternoon. He held her in his arms as she ate the whole dish. He did not eat a spoonful but told her his portion would be only what was left on her lips. They fell asleep sticky-mouthed. She smelled of toffee and vanilla and wife. Her loose hair had tickled him in the night but only so he smiled in his sleep.

He’d decided that being her husband would mean making sure she was cared for, not simply sufficiently, but excessively. She had shown how she would meet the needs of all around her well before her own were attended to, ignoring the risk or injury to herself. He had thanked Samuel Diggs particularly before they left Alexandria; he knew now how well the man had understood Mary and looked out for her, even from the first moment he met her. Samuel spoke easily but with great consideration. He had looked Jed straight in the eye and said, “It’s only ever a pleasure and a privilege to look out for a friend.” Jed thought what a measure it was of them both, Mary and Samuel, that they had so quickly seen the true value of the other. He had saved Samuel from those two soldiers but even then, he had not taken Samuel’s worth. Samuel had once again found a perfectly succinct way to school him, redefining his relationship with Mary even as Jed had put both of them in lesser positions, the servant, the wife. Jed had paused before he responded, “for once!” he could imagine his mother saying, and then replied, “You are right. A friendship like yours is a blessing,” and then gravely offered his hand. Mary had written to Samuel shortly after they arrived in Boston, a brief, formal letter still infused with her kindness; she’d read it to him before sealing it “as I have not much experience writing to men.” He had nodded and assured her that he thought the letter perfectly proper. He planned to write himself once he was better established in his practice and offer Samuel the connection or whatever additional training he might, though he suspected Samuel had already arranged well for himself and Aurelia.

Here he had Mrs. Hutchins to help him and Patty was already devoted to her mistress, he could see that. He’d also met with Miss Watson to discuss how he might help at her freedmen’s clinic and had seen what a good counter-part she was to Mary. He’d expected a spare New England spinster, mouth a little pinched, overly correct as Mary could sometimes be but he had been surprised. Miss Watson was full-figured, becomingly dressed with a sweet and homely face, completely direct but with a general affability he saw would make her a favorite. She was a skillful manager in a style different from Mary’s intelligent efficiency. He saw how she would balance Mary and how aware she was of Mary’s resumed responsibilities as a wife. Mary referred to her primarily as Miss Watson, but he hoped as time passed he would hear about Sophy instead. He still thought he had never met a woman less suited to her name, Sophonibsa.

The parlor seemed very quiet, warm with the strong afternoon light of May. It would be hours yet before night fell. Perhaps Mary was in the small back garden? Or perhaps he should call again. He had been delighted to discover she could sometimes become so thoroughly engaged in her reading or mathematics that she failed to respond to him, hadn’t even heard him. He loved the look on her face as she became aware of him, that little sorrow of the scholar leaving her work and then the calm happiness of realizing the cause.

“Here I am,” Mary said, walking down the hall to where he stood. She’d just come down the center staircase and had not paused along the way to create a charming tableau for him, as the belles of his youth would have, or Eliza when they were first married. She was too eager to come to him, to take his hand and turn up her face to be kissed. He must oblige her; the feeling of her mouth, her breasts pressed against him, was sweet. She was so generous with her affection to him he was able to simply enjoy the moment and not be swept away this time. He needn’t run up those stairs with her to their bedroom and wrestle her skirts aside to feel the silk of her parted thighs under his palms. Just her kiss and genuine embrace were enough. And then, Mrs. Hutchins had greeted him at the door and though he knew the housekeeper was indulgent of their honeymoon, Mary wanted the house run with respect and propriety. Once the bedroom door had closed, she was open, spontaneous and tender, merry and exultant, always more than he had imagined or hoped for.

“Shall we sit together a while? I could call Mrs. Hutchins for some tea. Or perhaps you’d rather be alone a little?” she asked. She was so careful to give him a choice, learning what he liked now that they were not at a fever-pitch. It was an adjustment, just as he was becoming accumstomed to seeing her without an apron always pinned to her dress. She liked to tuck a small posy of flowers at her sash, white violets or roses, and she wore a straw bonnet trimmed with lace when she went out on her calls. He doubted he’d seen her in a bonnet even three times before the left Mansion House; she hardly had any reason to wear one as she so rarely left the hospital.

“Oh, Molly, you know I’d much rather sit with you than anything else. Mrs. Hutchins already saw me when I came in-- so I very much suspect she is making us some sort of refreshment already,” he replied, letting his hand rest at her waist as he started walking into the parlor. They sat down on the sofa and Jed kept one hand round her while he took up her other hand in his. The conversation went differently when they sat so; their curious inquiry was more often interspersed with soft words.

“Were you successful then with Dr. Harris? Did you decide the hours of your clinic and the lecture schedule?” she said. 

“Oh yes, it went quite easily and then we enjoyed ourselves tearing to shreds that latest paper from New York. Even Hale could write something more impressive, what tripe! Jonathan mentioned he knows a few liked-minded fellows to ourselves and perhaps we might arrange a meeting or some symposium. There’s one in particular, a Dr. Blyth, lately from Washington City, who plans to set up a laboratory and has several interesting experiments in mind. Such a change from Mansion House, even McBurney seemed to care mostly for administration,” he said. He had only thought of the respite the end of the War would bring and the happiness of having Mary for his own, but it seemed his career and his own scientific contributions were likely to be much more fruitful here than he’d been in Baltimore. Boston could never be Paris or even Vienna or Bonn, but the vigor and brilliance of the other physicians Jonathan had mentioned was unexpected boon.

“I’m glad for you—it will make such a change to have colleagues who both challenge and support you. I almost pitied Dr. Hale, he wanted so to keep up with you! I thought, when the dining room is fit for a guest, we might invite Dr. Harris to dinner, perhaps next week? I should like to meet him and for him to know he is welcome at our home,” she said.

“I can’t think of anything better. I hope soon enough you’ll be Mary and Jonathan to each other. I don’t think I’ll know what to make of it if you remain Mrs. Foster and Dr. Harris,” he said, pausing a little to imagine the formality between two of those closest to him. He thought they would like each other quite well and he would risk them ganging up against him when it came to opinions on poetics or German philosophers. 

“And you, my sweet Molly, what did you do today? Busy as a bee I’d venture to guess,” he asked. Patty came in just then with a tray laden with a teapot and cups, a plate of delicate cakes dusted with sugar, and a little jug of milk. Her little white cap sat atop glossy brown hair, neatly braided in an approximation of the style Mary had worn at Mansion House. Patty carefully set the tray down on the table beside Mary and beamed at Mary’s approving nod. Mary turned to pour each cup and handed his back to him. He took a meditative sip, then put it down again.

“Have you you hired a housemaid or have found yourself another little Mr. Squivers? Though, I must say, your Patty is far more accomplished at her tasks and has steadier hands. I think she may go straight to Heaven if you praise her aloud!” Jed laughed.

“She is a dear little thing, isn’t she? I’ve written to her mother in Braintree so that she knows Patty is keeping well and that Mrs. Hutchins is training her. Patty told me she is the oldest of eight and the youngest is still a baby—it must have been very hard for her poor mother to send her away and I mean to be sure she knows Patty is safe and in a good household,” she replied. Jed tried to imagine his mother writing a letter to the mother of any servant she’d ever employed and failed. Perhaps Eliza would have, he shied away from recalling much of their marriage given its curiously painful end. But Mary, his Mary had such a tender heart and was so conscious of what was owed each person she encountered—not just what was owed but what could be given. He thought she probably had written the letter very simply so that Patty’s mother might be able to read it with whatever little schooling she had. He thought of all the letters she had written at Mansion House for boys maimed, dying, newly dead and reflected the letter to Patty’s mother must have been a pleasure. Perhaps she’d written it in the garden, on the wrought-iron bench they’d found near the small rose arbor; he liked to think so, how the petals might have rained on her with a light breeze and how she would have wrinkled her brow as she brushed them away.

Mary turned now so she was facing him. Her eyes were so bright! “You asked what I did today, Jedediah, so I’ll tell you. I wrote my letters and planned the menus for the week with Mrs. Hutchins. I thought I would be able to return to Gauss’s ‘Disquisitiones Arithmeticae,’ you know I’ve been trying to finish that chapter on quadratic reciprocity and it takes quite a lot of attention, well, for me at least,” and here he shook his head a little, as only Mary could think she was somehow lacking or poorly educated as the reason for her struggle with reading advanced mathematics in Latin. “But I hadn’t the time because the trunks arrived this morning and I have spent all afternoon unpacking yours! I could understand if it were books, but Jedediah Foster, you have twenty-three silk brocade vests and fourteen in velvet! I counted eighteen cravats, not one the same as another!”

How indignant she was! Her cheeks were pink with it and it was all he could to to resist taking her face in his hands and kissing her soundly on her beautiful mouth. Still, she had only wanted to spend an afternoon reading a mathematics text, in Latin no less, a text he could not make head nor tail of, and had been derailed by a domestic chore, so he only said, “Yes?”

“But, wherever could you wear them all? How did you, who bought so many? Why ever did you? I’ve never seen so many in one place before,” she replied. 

“I can’t say I haven’t ever thought much about it. Haven’t you a number of dresses filling your wardrobe, madam?” he countered with a grin. He’d hardly noticed what she wore at Mansion House. Mary had always been covered with a full apron and her manchettes de lustrine hid her sleeves. He’d always paid attention to her face, what expression it held, her variable gaze so intriguing.

“No, Jedediah. I have five dresses. Well, I had six, but the ball gown was ruined after Aurelia’s surgery and it didn’t seem to make sense to cut down that blue sarcenet into a bodice only,” she replied. 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. How can you only have five dresses? My mother, Eliza, I’m sure they had a far greater number than that. Even Miss Green, I’m certain I saw her in a greater variety,” he replied, genuinely puzzled. Did she mean she’d only five dresses that weren’t mourning clothes? She hadn’t spent the entire War in black delaine and bombazine.

“Miss Green and your mother, and… Eliza, they are all women of means. My family, and then, when I married Gustav, we always had… enough. There was no place for extravagance, certainly not vain extravagance like silks and embroidered organdy. I had what was needful—I still do but that is why I cannot fathom the vast number of such, how should I say it, such lavish things,” Mary said, clearly making an effort to offer her explanation honestly but touching on Eliza as little as possible.

He considered what she had said. At Mansion House, the War had been a leveller—all men bled the same color and the staff were subject to the same deprivations despite position. If someone was tempted to seek preference, it seemed the universe conspired to remind them all of how alike they were, with a fierce battle or the exorable tidal pull of a fever no one could cure. There were a few degrees of ease available, to be sure, but none as marked as in the life before the War or what he was discovering came after. His room had been much the same as Hale’s or McBurney’s and if his was filled with leather bound books and a closet full of French cravats, he attributed it to his interests and expected Hale’s would hold the cherished relics of his military career. Summers’s room had at the ready a fine violin, its belly glossy with varnish, spattered with rosin.

Now he reflected-- he was a wealthy man who had married a woman used to far less. She had been nearly aghast when he told her the monthly allowances for the household and herself and he had thought it was only New Hampshire parsimony. This difference between them, that what he considered only his due she saw as luxury, would need to be addressed. What he saw as her due she felt was extravagant vanity. But had he not promised himself at least, a secret vow he had made looking at her in that gloomy library in Alexandria as she agreed to be his, that he would make sure she had so much, nearly too much, of anything she could desire? The time was past for mere subsistence. He would begin and end with his love but between-times, there were other gifts. He would give her time to read, think, to let Euclid’s purity enchant her in a rose garden. There were experiences she could not have imagined—the galleries of Paris and its elegant golden Opera, the breath of the open sea in the crossing, the way the morning light threaded through a London fog as it hung over the slow, pewter Thames. And now, it appeared he might replace a ruined ballgown with one in changeable taffeta gleaming opal, like one he’d seen once at a ball just before the War started. He considered at the pleasure he would have in giving her all these and the trouble she would make over it. He thought Sophy Watson could be a help—she was sure to know a worthy seamstress who’d be glad of some work and Mary would have a harder time refusing his suggestion she add several dresses, not only the ballgown, to her meager wardrobe if she could also be instrumental in someone else’s livelihood.

Still, he would not have her think him entirely profligate, with that trunk full of brocade and the rich nap of silk velvet. He began, not exactly sure how he would find his way through the maze of it, “Well, you see Molly, for me, it’s how I was brought up. A gentleman was expected to comport himself in a certain way, the proper way, and that included his dress. The whole family really—I don’t think either my mother or my sister ever left the house without spending at least an hour in their rooms with their maids, curling their hair just so, even though Clara’s at least was pretty enough without any special attention.”

He spared a thought for Clara and the scowl she made as her pale brown hair was tied up with rags. He thought of how excited she’d been at first to wear stays and then how she’d confided that they pinched her something fierce. “Every occasion called for its own degree of… elegance, I suppose? When I was a boy, I didn’t think about it much, other than the everlasting inconvenience of always needing to be clean and properly dressed-- all I wanted was to run in the woods or work on some experiment I’d ginned up.”

“I can imagine that,” Mary interjected, a fond smile on her face. What would it be like to have such a mother, so welcoming to curiosity and exploration? He thought for an instant of a child of theirs, excitedly showing Mary something muddy or rudely wrested from the edge of a pond, and that look upon her face. She would likely offer encouragement or her own observation, “I think it looks quite different from the first one, perhaps you should find a third and compare them all,” and would only rue the extra work of patching pockets or washing the stains from little shirts with Mrs. Hutchins.

“I was in Paris when I first actually noticed anything that people wore, or how things could look, full-stop. I arrived, convinced the hospital alone would offer experiences I could never hope to have in Boston or New York-- the city and its people would be just the same as I was used to, generally dull and not worth my time, and as of little interest to me as any Marylander. How wrong I was and how politely the Frenchmen I encountered showed me my error! I think they rather enjoyed it,” Gilles had laughed aloud at Jed’s face when the passed the Cathedral, when he saw the actresses leaving the theater, still painted but no longer for the footlights. 

“There is such an ingrained appreciation of beauty in Paris, even the lowliest char would tie her head-scarf just so, you know. The city seemed constructed not because they needed a bank here or a hospital there but for sheer… loveliness, I guess. I can’t think of any American city like it, not even a little. I made some friends, Gilles and Michel, at the hospital—I was the rude, brash American but they were entertained by me, I know, I know, Molly, hold your tongue, madam!-- so they brought me round to the salons, the galleries. The women there-- they were like the brightest butterflies but what they valued most was wit—in speaking and dress. I was quite a pet to a few who found I was… trainable? And they much enjoyed teaching me what I asked to know and even more, I think, what I didn’t,” he said. He recalled Madame Durand, how she had observed him and so clearly found him wanting, but had been quite gentle really, suggesting _le tailleur_ , commenting, “So much better to be _au courant, cher Docteur, n’est ce pas_?”and how Madame Perrin had pointed out “Even one’s clothes can be a thing of beauty, there is no need to be dull there so you may shine brightly elsewhere, _mon petit_.” He’d bristled a little at that but she had only patted his sleeve and glided away to another conversation, undisturbed by his pique. 

And there had been courtesans, charming blonde Marie-Laure, the exquisite Camille, who had pulled at his cravats and unbuttoned his vests, clearly unimpressed by the inferior cloth. They would occasionally even exclaim their distaste, “This is so rough, so plain, why it’s barely fit for a tradesman, not a fine gentleman!” Would she recoil to hear of those associations? He thought it unlikely, he’d been a young, unmarried man then, with natural urges, but he didn’t think she would be eager to gain such knowledge. He’d found she had a way of avoiding certain topics at Mansion House, ones that might only bring distress, or crack the façade beyond repair and felt here was another time when discretion was the better part of valor.

“It was a funny life, Paris, the oddest Grand Tour you can think of—the hospital was filled with such brilliant men, you can’t imagine, Molly—and such illness, but every day, a discovery or a new procedure. Hardly anyone was patient but it didn’t matter as long as you could see past your own stupidity, or argue your point with total conviction. And then everything else was so cultured, the salons and galleries, every dinner party I was brought to… I only survived since they were all so taken with the wild American at the table who was so easily shocked by everything. The French, they don’t shy away from… appetites like we do—I never quite got used to it, but I can’t say they’re wrong about it. What good is there in ignoring the beauties of the world, natural or man-made? Everyone around me accepted the desire for pleasure—in clothes, meals, art, society. It became easy, with the money I had, to buy this beautiful thing and that, for myself, for anyone who asked,” he said. 

“You must have been quite popular I think, then, buying this and that for whomever asked. I see you were the one I should have implored for fresh parsnips and potatoes, how much time I wasted in Virginia,” she replied, eyebrows raised. Her dry New England amusement at his extravagance broke through again, even as she offered him a fresh cup of tea he waved off. Had he once thought Marie-Laure charming? Camille-- the epitome of her name, petals guarding an ivory mystery? 

“If only my powers had extended that far! How we might have dined! Some things were beyond even my pocket-book in Alexandria. But you must know, I don’t want to do that anymore, though, I don’t want to be so… indiscriminant. I only want to satify all of your desires, my sweet Molly, even if it means you toss out all those silk and velvet vests and dress me in undyed linsey-woolsey. Or sackcloth, I rather think you’d prefer that,” he jested, pressing his hand against her waist. He wished the shell of her stays gone, wished for a moment she was under him in their bed, reaching for him; he wanted that look in her eyes, that desperate, hungry love that called for his mouth, his hands, his cock, the Molly only he saw. Her gasps then were his alone. He saw the flush that spread across her breasts, her whole body sleek, parted, close; her wife’s virtue and passion in complete balance. There was only their breath, their sweat, their mutual cries striving and then their shared languor, the secret hope of a child. She would hold him in her arms with his cheek against her till he slept, every curve of her not excessive, but exceeding-- love, desire, the wildest hope, the most subtle dream. How could he do other than wish to give her everything she gave him without limitations?

“Jedediah,” she called even from where she sat so near, bringing him back to the second-hand sofa and the cooling tea in the cups, “Jed, surely you know I won’t be discarding any of your things, though I can’t say I’ll ever polish your boots with champagne, my fine Beau Brummel. I won’t even ignore the crates I could not face today. Only I may not be inclined as you wish, I don’t think I’ll be able to always seek more and more, to satisfy your vanity.”

“But that’s as it should be—don’t you think my vanity is the one that needs stinting? Whereas yours, your vanity is sadly neglected, Molly. Be a little venial for me, won’t you, so I don’t think I’ve married a marble angel?” he said, sliding his hand to her hip where it flared to her round bottom through the yards of fabric that were more pliable than whalebone and coutille.

“Jedediah!” she exclaimed and he shifted his hand back, enjoying her tone that said “not now” and was not a rejection. She settled herself back a bit and he prepared for her next sally, “I’ve no concern you’ll be convinced of that, especially if that next trunk contains fourteen pairs of trousers or a dozen wool greatcoats. Tell me there is not a collection of haberdashery or I may go mad!” she teased. He thought of what could have been sent, what he had kept in his room at Mansion House and what else he had wanted to have in their new home.

“No, I think you’ll not be so put out. I didn’t only buy cravats and frock-coats in Paris. There were such beautiful paintings and Eliza didn’t, that is, they were never hung when I returned to Baltimore,” he said, working to keep out the bitterness that crept in with Eliza’s name. “You should only keep the ones you like, but I think there will be a few to your taste, and maybe you won’t be so certain you’ve married a dandy,” he replied.

“I think I can hardly complain too much, now that you’ve explained yourself so well. After all, you’ve married a New England bluestocking and I haven’t heard a word against it, not even the warning my own mother would make that I would ruin my eyes,” she said.

He took in her bright smile, her winsome face, those dark eyes that could be so serious and then so amused by turns. She’d always been told to limit herself, in a way he never had been, and he meant to change that now. She’d get her afternoon tomorrow to study if they unpacked the other crate of French oils and a few delicate etchings now. He anticipated a lively discussion about assigning their places in the parlor, dining room, the library. There was a Corot he hoped to hang above their bed and landscape by Dupre, a minor one. He thought it would remind her of the early spring before they married. He liked to think of her sitting curled in the armchair by the empty library hearth, ‘Disquisitiones’ in her lap and the Dupre lighting the afternoon when a soft rain fell instead of sunlight. She would try to explain it all to him when they lay together at night, tracing an arc with her hand, catching at words that might be as clear to him as it was inside her mind. He wouldn’t understand any of it other than the similar pattern of the scientist at his experiment, the artist glancing across a field and then the rendering hand at the canvas.

“Well, I am a physician and I’m not overly concerned your Gauss will hasten any spectacles,” he said firmly. “Shall we unpack that other crate together and then be able to sit down to the supper I know Mrs. Hutchins has been laboring over?” he asked, standing and reaching a hand down to her. She took it and they walked down the hall. There was the sound of Patty’s new sturdy little boots from the kitchen; she showed more alacrity than Percival Squivers ever had. Mary murmured, “You must be kind to Patty tonight, she is quite excited to serve the soup but I’m not convinced it will all find its way to the bowls, so I only ordered consomme.” 

“I will be very kind, but at least you know I have an ample supply of waistcoats if she stains this one,” he replied and she just raised her eyebrows again, the only Euclidean geometry he’d ever cared for.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for Annebronterocks, a wonderful reader and commenter, who asked for an explanation for Jed's more elaborate wardrobe-- I was happy to come up with this rather meandering tale about what is enough vs. what is too much, the role of beauty vs. function, Paris vs. Baltimore, and I let Mary be the organized manager of her household and a not-too-frustrated-yet housewife who just wants to read her book. The title is the most famous quotation of Beau Brummel, the archetypal English dandy. In keeping with the scholarly flavor this story has, here are some notes for your edification (if you wish)...
> 
> George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840) was an iconic figure in Regency England, the arbiter of men's fashion, and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. He established the mode of dress for men that rejected overly ornate fashions for one of understated, but perfectly fitted and tailored bespoke garments. He claimed he took five hours a day to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. The style of dress was referred to as dandyism.
> 
> Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (/ɡaʊs/; German: Gauß,) (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, astronomy, matrix theory, and optics. Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum (Latin, "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. The Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (Latin: Arithmetical Investigations) is a textbook of number theory written in Latin in 1798 when Gauss was 21 and first published in 1801 when he was 24. In this book Gauss brings together results in number theory obtained by mathematicians such as Fermat, Euler, Lagrange and Legendre and adds important new results of his own.
> 
> Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French: [ʒɑ̃ ba.tist ka.mij kɔ.ʁo]; July 16, 1796[1] – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.
> 
> Jules Dupré (April 5, 1811 – October 6, 1889) was a French painter, one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. In 1834 he came to England, where he was impressed by the genius of Constable. From then on he learned how to express movement in nature; and the districts around Southampton and Plymouth, with its wide, unbroken expanses of water, sky and ground, gave him good opportunities for studying the tempestuous motion of storm-clouds and the movement of foliage driven by the wind.
> 
> The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means, or those of more humble origin who could find a sponsor. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage. Though primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy landed gentry, similar trips were made by wealthy young men of Protestant Northern European nations on Continental Europe, and from the second half of the 18th century, by some South and North Americans. The primary value of the Grand Tour, it was believed, lay in the exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent. 
> 
> Sophonisba (also Sophonisbe, Sophoniba; in Punic, Ṣap̄anbaʿal) (fl. 203 BC) was a Carthaginian noblewoman who lived during the Second Punic War, and the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco Gisgonis. In an act that became legendary, Sophonisba poisoned herself rather than be humiliated in a Roman triumph.
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> Euclid (/ˈjuːklɪd/; Greek: Εὐκλείδης, Eukleidēs Ancient Greek: [eu̯.klěː.dɛːs]; fl. 300 BCE), was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "father of geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BCE). His Elements is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, serving as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the Elements, Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory and rigor.


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